Νέα Εστία and the Literary Scene in Greece (1967-1974)

Abstract

Νέα Εστία (Nea Hestia), one of the most important literary periodicals in Greece, was established in 1927 by Grigorios Xenopoulos and it is still in circulation today. Petros Charis (who was Xenopoulos’s collaborator from the very first years) was the director of Nea Hestia for more than fifty years (from 1935 to 1987) and he contributed both to the formation of the special character of the periodical and to the history of modern Greek literature. This article focuses on the period that starts with the establishment of the military junta (1967) and ends with its fall (1974). The basic goal of the article is the study the role that Nea Hestia played during the abovementioned years. Some of the questions that I try to answer are: what was the contribution of Nea Hestia to the formation of the Greek literary scene?; to what extent did Nea Hestia influence new tendencies in poetry and prose (the so-called literary generation of 1970) produced during the pressing conditions of the military junta?; in what way did the director Petros Charis and his personal aesthetic and political ideology shape Nea Hestia’s character?; taking into consideration the significant role that the periodical played during the previous decades (1930-1960), did it manage to maintain its position during the years 1967-1974? The approach is based on two axes: The first is the literary content of the main corpus of the periodical and the second is the literary reviews that appeared in a special section. Both the authors whose work is selected for publication and the reviewed books reveal the editors’ choices and can be seen as a ‘mirror’ that reflects changes in the literary scene in Greece.